Saturday, March 18, 2006

Guitar: Can You Learn To Play Guitar Without Goals?

By: Peter Edvinsson

In many articles on the net on learning to play guitar you willfind many article authors stressing the importance of settinggoals. Well, it would be interesting to find out if you canlearn to play guitar without goals. Let us investigate thematter!

I have many memories of my first attemps to play the guitar.Like many boys I had many interests like reading, playing piano,singing, listening to music, athletics, chess, stamp collecting,painting and other things at different times. Playing guitar wasjust one of them.

I remember that I had my own way of practicing guitar playing. Ialways had my guitar on my bed waiting for me. I sat down on mybed many times everyday playing for a while and then starting todo other things.

Sometimes I felt inspired to play guitar for an hour or two andother times just for a minute. Did I have goals or not?

I know that I was developing as a guitarist quite fast and Ithink it must have been something in my way of playing andpracticing guitar that was good.

I believe that some of the reasons for my progress during thoseearly days of my learn to play guitar career were:

1. I felt no pressure to become an accomplished guitarist. Ijust felt the joy of sitting down with my guitar trying to findout the treasuries in the land of music.

2. My father was a guitar teacher giving me lessons at times andI always heard him play guitar in our home. Other guitaristsvisited our home many times and these visits inspired me a lot.

3. I never felt a pressure to play fast and thereby buildingtensions by playing too fast. This is one of the big mistakesbeginning guitarist and even accomplished guitarists sometimesmake.

4. As I mentioned previously I did a lot of other things besidesplaying guitar and I guess all these things I was involved inkept my mind quite healthy and helped me retain my joy when Ilearned to play guitar.

I guess in a sense I had goals that was not so apparent to methat directed me towards somewhere even if I was quite contentbeing on the road of progress towards guitar land.

Can you learn something from my early guitar experiences? Atleast you can learn the following:

1. When learning to play guitar always remember to enjoy the actof playing without thinking too much on what you can or cannotdo as a guitarist.

2. Try to associate with good musicians and guitarists thatinspire you to play musically and that give you the motivationto learn to play new things on your guitar.

3. Beware of playing too fast on your guitar. There is a risk ofbuilding up muscle tensions and thereby actually reducing yourability to play fast. A remedy for this and a way to tameyourself is to use a metronome at a low tempo to reduce yourspeed to a level where you can play your guitar in a relaxedmanner.

4. To become an interesting guitarist and musician you mightbenefit from being involved in other activities like listeningto good music, having another hobby, reading good books,assiciate with other people and more.

Do you have to have goals to become a good guitarist? Well, evenif you don't have learn to play guitar goals in the ordinarysense you can help yourself to play everyday by having easyaccess to your guitar.

I had my guitar on my bed. Maybe you want to have your guitar inyour favorite armchair. I guess you understand the principle....